Will Book Groups Like the Winners?
Posted by: Mary Ellen
The winners of two major literary prizes, the Man Booker and the Nobel, were recently announced.
The Man Booker Prize, awarded each year to the “very best” full-length novel written by a citizen of the British Commonwealth or the Republic of Ireland, went to Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall , a fictionalized biography of Thomas Cromwell. Wolf Hall’s length (560 pages) and the fact that, as a review in USA Today notes, it “assumes a deep knowledge of English history” may make it a tough sell. On the other hand, shortly after the Booker announcement Nora Rawlinson reported on Early Word that Wolf Hall was #2 on Amazon sales rankings and that library reserves had more than doubled.
The 2009 Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to Herta Muller, a Romanian-born German novelist. Her novels, 
several of which are available in the U.S., deal with political oppression and exile, and her writing has been described as dark and sparse. Peter Englund of the Swedish Academy advises readers who are new to Muller to start with The Land of Green Plums, which some consider her best book. Macmillan recently announced that The Land of Green Plums and another Muller novel, The Appointment, are going back to press.
